Japan: Currency

Yello Everybody,

I'm feeling a bit tired at the moment so i'm only going to do a quick post. Today in my series on small things about Japan i'll cover currency. The currency of Japan is the Yen(pronounced over here as En). 100 Yen is worth roughly 1 Dollar(Australian).

The smallest piece of Japanese change is 1 Yen(Ichi En) which is a small silver colored coin which is incredibly lightweight(possibly made of an aluminium alloy), the next is 5 Yen(Go En) which is a small yellow/gold coin with a hole in the middle, the next is 10 Yen(Ju En) which is a brown/bronze coin, the next is 50 Yen(Go Ju En) which is a silver coin with a hole in the middle, the next is 100 Yen(Hyaku En) which is a silver coin a bit bigger than the 50 Yen coin(both the 50 Yen and 100 yen are made of a better metal than the 1 Yen and have actual weight to them), the last coin is the 500 Yen(Go Hyaku En) which is gold colored(real gold color not yellowy gold like the 5 yen) and is a much bigger coin. All Japanese coins are circular and all the coins from 50 up have milled edges, while the 1, 5 and 10 Yen have smooth edges, all the coins except the 5 yen clearly state their denomination.

Extra Note: in terms of making offerings at shrines(common practise when praying/wishing for something and at new year) the number 5 is consider auspicious/lucky so 5, 50 and 500 are often used(not so much the 5 though).

In terms of notes they start with the 1000 Yen(Sen En), then the 5000 Yen(Go Sen En) and the 10000 Yen(Ichi Man(no En added this time)). There is also a 2000 Yen note(Ni Sen En) but its not very common and its not very popular(possibly because its the only Japanese currency which breaks the 1,5,10,50,100,500..... pattern). Japanese Notes are a bit more colorful than the green only american notes(but no where near as colorful as the Australian notes), the 1000 is green/blue, the 2000 is mainly blue, the 5000 is reddish and the 10000 is mainly grey with a mixture of green and red. Each note has a important Japanese person on one side and an important Japanese culture image on the other side, They all also read NIPPON GINKO(nippon = japan and Gin is gold= money) both sides have an inkan stamp and there are lots of watermarks all over the bill to show authenticity, the most obvious being a plain oval in the center of all the bills which when held to the light shows an image(of the person from the bill). Japanese Notes are much taller than Australian notes, my original wallet only barely fit them and my new Japanese wallet is so tall that australian bills will get lost in it(well not really but they will be deep inside).

The image today is of the coinage of Japan.

Japan: Sweets

Yello Everybody,

Today in my series of small things about Japan, it's sweets. Traditional Japanese sweets are actual more sour than sweets seaweed(a special more fruity type) and umeboshi(sour plums) are quite common and popular. Each area in Japan also has a traditional gift sweet(for Omiage(gift giving post trip to friends family and co workers)) the most famous being Tokyo Banana a soft cookie with a banana in it(it's very nice). Milk based sweets are found in some areas. Water Candy is also interesting(think of it as a clear sugar flavoured sticky candy but with an almost jelly like consistancy). Boiled candy is also common(I bought some nice ones in Kyoto) and little pointy balls of boiled candy are the standard(look like little stars and come in lots of colors).

In terms of common candy found in stores the number one is Pocky TM which like pretz(see last weeks post on savory snacks) consists of a lot of individual sticks(this case pretzel-ish but without the saltiness) with a coating of chocolate covering all but a small bit at one end(so you can hold it without getting chocolate on your fingers), it comes in a heap of different kinds from the basic chocolate, dark chocolate(for Men), white chocolate, coconut rough and heaps more(there are also derivative sweets very similar to Pocky which is now practically generic). Chocolate is also common and the standard chocolate is probably a bit sweeter than the australian kind(it also comes in individually pieces as opposed to one block which you have to split). However dark chocolate is much more common over here(between 30 and 40% of chocolates are dark) and some have incredibly high cocoa contents(making them very bitter). Gummy type lollies also proliferate but are mainly made from from and/or sour. Hard candy is also everywhere.

Cakes and cake shops are huge over here in Japan and are almost everywhere the cakes are very elaborate always well presented and extremely tasty. Also the majority of cake shops here in Japan make the cakes on the premesis and you can see into the Kitchen from the main shop area. In terms of Japanese cake type confectionary, anko(red bean paste) is the most common filling(although green tea flavors are also common) there are manju(steamed cakes), dorayaki(anko filled pancakes), Taiyaki(very common and delicious fish shaped cake filled most often with anko, you can often find venders on the streets or sidewalks in some places), mochi(rice cakes basically balls made of ground rice and sugar and sometimes with fillings they are quite sticky and are usually coated with some flour), Dango are mochi balls often with a syrup coating on a skewer(usual in a group of three).

An interesting note on Japanese and Sweets is about Valentines Day, unlike the western world where valentines day is an equal opportunity giver on Febuary 14th(although men giving is the norm), in Japan Febuary 14th is Valentines day and is when girls( so only the women) give chocolate to the boys(usually of the dark variety), the chocolates can be either Girri(for friends and associates or out of obligation) or Honmei(for lovers). There is a follow up one month later on March 14th called White day where the boys reciprocate to the girls(generally white chocolate).

Anyways I hope you found this interesting and informative, the picture today could only be Pocky.

Back to School

Yello Everybody,

Well this week went pretty well despite being a bit of a shock after going on holidays for a week. The Sunday I spent mostly resting and unpacking the stuff I bought on the trip. The monday I was still very tired but I paid some bills and did a bit of lesson prep work in between resting, surprisingly enough the holiday was much more energy consuming than my usual weeks). For the rest of the week I went down to Kanoya for another business trip(the same trip that I did for the 1st time last month) Again it was a long way to travel but the town is really nice and the school and students are also great. I discovered that I could hook up the internet at the hotel(hence the extra posts) and the time down there ended up being very enjoyable despite being quite hot on some days and on one day raining almost torrentially(there is a river next to the class and it become very high and rough due to all the rain). The way back was a bit of an epic, in a moment of tiredness I forgot to take my bag of the bus between Kanoya and the Tarumizu ferry port(I put the bag on an overhead rack and then just forgot about it). Luckily with the help of Ben the supervisor for the Kagoshima area, some helpful people at the ferry ports office and the bus driver concerned, I managed to get my bag back(by waiting for a couple of hours until the bus relooped back to the ferry port), it was very exhausting after a long week and especially when I was travelling on the sunday. I stopped for a brief time at central Kagoshima and had a really nice talk with an older gentleman(He spoke very good english) that I met in a bookshop about the Japanese love of manga and how it had become so huge in the 50 years of his lifetime and that even people of his generation and highly educated people in Japan also liked to read manga(I think he said he was a university professor). Anyway last night and most of today have just been relaxation, cleaning and a bit of work stuff. The image today is another from the trip, it's of my father and myself at Kiyomizudera in Kyoto(and if you check my very early posts there should be one of me alone at exactly the same spot).



In my otaku corner today i'm going to talk about the new anime and manga series Lucky Star, a newly popular(in Japan, so relatively unknown elsewhere) series which is part parody, part school/slice of life and a lot of fun alround. The central characters, 4 school girls, are Konata- one of the more interesting character designs she looks incredibly young for her age(high school but could pass for a middle schooler) and despite having a natural aptitude for school work and incredible athletic abilities is entirely disinterested in both due to being a hard core otaku(she reads manga, watches anime, collects figures and cards, goes to events and even works in a cosplay cafe) she is an only child and her only parent is her father(a writer who is even weirder than her) she also has a cousin who is a policewoman, Tsukasa- a typical airhead kind cutsy teen girl character who is good at housework but terrible at sports and schoolwork, Kagami- Tsukasa's older fraternal twin sister who is pretty much the opposite of her sister being cynical, hard working, good at school and horrible at housework, the 4th main character is Miyuki- a rich, kind, clumsy, intelligent, glasses wearing alround perfect seeming girl whose fault are discribed by Konata as being not faults as such but turn ons(the clumsyness and the glasses things). It's very cutsy but has a nice cynical otaku humour bent throughout the series. The YouTube is the opening from the anime of the series, the song is a bit annoying but also funny and suprisingly addictive.

Additional: People may have noticed the new Shout Bar feature that I added to the blog(it's the thing on the top right of the page), please feel free to make use of it be you friend, family or random visitor. Although I know that in a lot of peoples cases visiting the Blog is not a regular thing, If you do and you want to leave a message for me please do(unless you have my email and prefer to simply email me).

Japan: Savory Snacks

Yello and welcome to my second post on small things about Japan.

Today it's about Savory Snacks: Traditional savory snacks in Japan include many dried seafoods, Takoyaki(octopus dumplings) are quite popular and originated in Osaka, grilled squid is another popular snack, With beer there are a type of green bean which comes in a pod which are nice and a bit salty, Yakisoba which is fried soba noodles together with vegetables and some meat is also nice, Onigiri(rice balls) are the generic japanese snack(much like a sandwhich in western cultures) they usually come wrapped in dry seaweed and have many fillings including egg, fish, chicken, plum etc.

There are also a lot of versions of western type savory snacks like Potato chips, Corn chips, popcorn etc. Many of these have flavors aimed at the japanese palate so seafood flavors are common, and Yaki Niku(korean barbeque- small pieces of meat and vegetables cooked on a hotplate of BBQ by you while you eat) flavors are also common. There is also a love of extreme spices and as such Habanero Chill flavored chips are quite common(if you don't want to check the link think of it as a Jalepeno x10-100), Wasabi flavored snacks are less common but still around. Bakeries selling savory bread products are very common in Japan although apparently this is only a relatively recent thing(the last 10 years or so).

A very common japanese savory snack is called Pretz(which is a box of pretzel sticks which are flavored in many different ways(although salted is the norm)). The image today is of a box of Pretz.

Anyway that's about it for Savory Snacks, hope that it was of some interest, my next post will be in a couple of days and will be my weekly update post.

Japan: Drinks

Yello everyone and welcome to the first post in my series of posts on japan and little interesting differences.

Todays topic is drinks or Nomimono in japanese. There a bunch of interesting things about Japanese drinks that I barely notice anymore so heres a few: Vending Machines in Japan are amazing(i've already mentioned this I know) and have a large range of drinks and which come both Hot and Cold(although now its nearing summer the hot is dissapearing), Alcoholic drinks are also available in vending machines(mostly in hotels but occasionally on the street). I the machines you can also find 500ml Cans(yes a can the size of a bottle) and what I call Can Bottles- aluminium bottles with aluminium screw top lids exactly the same size as a can of drink(these are quite useful since you can drink a bit then put the lid back on for later unlike a normal can). Some vending machines also vend paper disposable cups instead of cans and bottles.

Another interesting thing is strange alternate flavors of drinks you already know: Pepsi Ice Cumcumber comes to mind(it's a new drink, coloured green and suprisingly nice to drink), Fanta comes in a million different flavors Orange being relatively uncommon with Melon and Grape being the top 2, i've had Peach, Strawberries in Cream, 5 fruit, Apple, Muscat and Apple, Pineapple Fanta and a few other Fanta's I can't remember what was in.

In terms of uniquely Japanese drinks: CC Lemon a high vitamin C strong lemon tasting softdrink, Ramien Soda a nice clear soda with a mild refreshing taste which comes in a interesting glass bottle with a marble stopper(to drink it you pop the marble into the bottle and then tilt the bottle so the marble is caught between two nubs so that it doesn't block the whole while drinking). Pocari Sweat is an ionic water(one of many) and is very popular over here(Thorpedo the ionic water isn't doing as well), Bikkle is a strange non carbonated watery yogurt flavored drink, Green Tea in a million varieties is imensly popular. In terms of Alcohol Sake(rice wine) or Shochu(spirit made from anything a bit like vodka) are common traditional drinks, with beer Kirin, Sapporo and Asahi are 3 of the biggest makes and the beer is light and probably a touch weaker than australian beers, wine and other spirits are also drunk and Whiskey's are particularily popular.

A common thing with drinks when bought in convenience stores is little extra gifts ranging from small collectables, mobile phone accessories, keyrings as well as things like calculators, mini watches and others.

In terms of energy drinks, ones like V, Red Bull and the like are almost non-existant, you can however find little energy drinks in what looks like medicine bottles(and in some cases semi test tubes) but its a real hit and miss with flavor and effect unless you know enough japanese to understand what you're buying(I don't).

As a person who doens't drink coffee I can't tell you much about Japanese coffee except it comes in vending machines both hot and cold and there are a large number of coffee shops over here including many foreign franchises like starbucks. Also my father in his recent visit commented that they were pretty sweet.

Well that's all I can think of in terms of drinks, I hope that people found this of some interest. The picture today is of Pepsi Ice Cucumber. Happy Drinking everybody, I'll do another post in a couple of days on a different topic.

Back for a Bit

Yello Everyone,
Well i'm back in Kumamoto(at least until tomorrow when i'm going on a second trip down to Kanoya to teach(same as last month). After Kyoto we went to a strange golfing resort which wasn't far from Lake Hakone(one of the 5 lakes around mt Fuji) the hotel wasn't fantastic but we went on a cruise on Lake Hakone(on a ship which looked like a pirate ship) which was a lot of fun, unfortunately the weather wasn't very clear however we did for a short time see a nice view of Fuji from the lake. After spending a night there we moved onto Tokyo, where we stayed at a nice hotel in Suidobashi(a fairly central district in Tokyo which is 2 stops by train to either Tokyo station or Akihabara). Not so much sight seeing in Tokyo, more shopping since we were fairly exhausted of tourist activities post Kyoto, it was still a lot of fun though. We only had a short time in tokyo- half a day on thursday, a full day on friday and then my parents left by plane early morning on saturday. I however put my baggage in a locker at the station and spent and extra half day on saturday shopping and looking around tokyo(mainly in akihabara). I probably ended up buying much too much stuff(mainly of the otaku variety, models, manga etc.) anyways it was a good half day followed by a long 9 and a bit hour trip by shinkansen back home to kumamoto(i arrived around midnight).

The images this time are both from the cruise on lake hakone, one of myself and a fake cannon and one of my parents with the lake in the background.


No otaku section this time, sorry, after experiencing again the wonderful mecca of all thing otaku that is Akihabara i'm feeling a bit otaku'd out. However i've decided to aim to finish my year in japan with a blog post count of 100, thus i'm going to be increasing my post count from a single weekly update post to at least 3-4 posts a week. The extra posts won't be about what i'm doing so much but about things i've noticed or find interesting about the japanese culture and of course about my otaku obsessions.

Yellow From Kyoto

Yello everyone,
You guessed it, i'm in Kyoto("The anagram lovers capital of Japan", props to those who recognise the quotation source). On sunday I arrived here with my parents(we ended up on the same shinkansen to Osaka), we ended in kyoto early afternoon and after checking into the hotel we went on to Nijo Castle which is famous for its nighting gale floors(floors which squeek musically whenever people step on them, designed to prevent assasination attempts on the lord) before heading into central Kyoto where to my delight we discovered the International Manga Museum of Kyoto which had a fantastic rnage on manga as well as an exibit on figurines(really intricate diarama's in some cases) and a model painting activity(you get a free model with entry, it was fun). We then enjoyed getting lost in the massive shopping arcades(enclosed streets of shops).

On Monday we in the morning went to Kiyomizu-dera(one of Kyoto's Big 3 temples which I visited last time I was here, fantastic views) and Sanjensendo(1000 buddha temple) in the morning before travelling by train down to nara in the afternoon to see the reindeer(which are everywhere in parks on the street and even in temple grounds) and the Statue of the Big Buddha(an absolutely massive buddha statue made entirely out of wood). When we returned to Kyoto I made a side trip by train into Osaka to have a look in the central shopping area around the train station.

On Tuesday(today) in the morning I felt a bit sick so I stayed in the hotel while my parents went on a walk, about midday we met up at the Kinkakuji Temple(golden pavillion another of the big 3 temples of Kyoto) which was fantastic to look at with a wonderful lake and a gold foil coated temple. Later we went onto Ginkakuji Temple(silver pavillion the 3rd of the big 3 temples of Kyoto) which while not actually silver in color has one of the best temple gardens around. Later we went to Kyoto station to arrange tommorrows tickets to Mt Fuji before returning to the central shopping area.

Anyways Kyoto has been great and tomorrow we're moving onto Mt. Fuji before Tokyo later this week, i'll skip my otaku section at this time(i'll do a big one post Akiba, Tokyo). The pictures today are the gold pavillion, the silver pavillion, the deers of Nara and the Big Buddha statue.

Holiday Yahoo

Yello Everyone,
Wow, it's a double post week. This is because tomorrow morning i'm going on a holiday with my parents, as I mentioned last post we're visiting Kyoto, Mt. Fuji and Tokyo. It's going to be a lot of fun, i'm particularily looking forward to seeing the Gold and Silver Pavilions in Kyoto, the giant budha statue at Nara and going back to Akihabara(tokyo's electronics and otaku district). Anyways this week in Okuchi went fine, nothing of particular interest to note, same trip, same hotel and the same students(that's not to say that it wasn't good or that the school or town is boring it's just nothing out of the ordinary). Todays picture is one I found after downloading all the random keitai(mobile phone) pictures i had taken, It's of a condom vending machine and the slogan "Stop (THE) AIDs" is a good example of how the Japanese sometimes use English in a way which while not exactly wrong, isn't exactly correct either.

Anyways, i'll end with a quick otaku section this time on manga in general. Manga as i've mentioned in other posts is the book form of anime(japanese animation) and the place most animes spring from. In western terms they are comics allthough the art style is for the most part far superior to comics. The manga art style has its routes in tradition Japanese/Buddist paintings although contempary mangas are nothing like their routes. It's hard for people from western cultures to imagine just how wide spread and huge a part of society manga is, its often produced in the serial book form which some may have seen translated versions of, however there are also many weekly and monthly magazines produced full of lots of different mangas. Before people get the wrong idea, they are called magazines but these things are roughly the same size as a large hardback novel with a magazine like cover and newspaper like interior and contain chapters(20 or so pages worth) from many different series. These are not just a niche item either they are sold prominantly in any and all convenience stores, news agencies(allthough most news agencies are convenience stores) and book shops, and you see many people reading them on trains and the like from the young to the middle aged. Even when it comes to book manga's its hard to conceptualize the quantity however in huge bookstores there are sections devoted entirely to manga which are roughly the size of a small bookshop elsewhere, and all bookstores have a manga section. And all of that is just the professional manga's, semi professional and manga club books are also everywhere in even higher numbers. Mangas aren't just comedy or action like most comics, they range into romance, mystery, crime, and all other genre's including echii(manga's with adult content like nudity) and hentai(manga's with explicit adult imagery)(both echii and hentai magazines are sold in convenience stores also). Anyways i hope i managed to convey just how huge a part of society manga is here in japan.

Visiters from Afar

Yello everyone,
The last week was relatively uneventful with 3 days at Kusunoki(one of my 2 normal schools) and the other 2 days team teaching with other teachers at their schools. However on sunday my parents arrived in Kumamoto, they are out here for 2 weeks and arrived in fukuoka on the saturday, came to kumamoto on sunday and will stay here till thursday when they'll go back to fukuoaka to stay with the parents of one of dad's students(he works as a lecturer at sunshine coast uni), before going onto nagasaki and hiroshima(where the atomic bombs were dropped in WW2). In the meantime i'm on my Okuchi business trip from wednesday to saturday and on sunday everyone will meet up in kyoto where we'll stay for a few days before going onto mt fuji for a short while and then finishing up in tokyo. Anyways on sunday they arrived and I met them at there hotel and we went back to my apartment to show them around and wait for some shinkansen tickets work was sending me, it's really nice to see my parents again and almost as nice is the extra clothes, shoes, books etc. that they brought over for me(Thanks a heap mum, dad and my sister and brother in law who helped them find the stuff for me). Anyway after that we went back to town and looked around in shimatori(the large enclosed walkway/mall/arcade) for a while before having dinner and parting ways. On monday we met up and went on a trip to mount aso(an active volcano in the middle of kyushu(the southern island of japan, where i live)), to get there we took a train and then a bus, it took a long time but the view was stunning and as australians active volcanoes are not an everyday thing. On our trip we ran into some travelling aussies and saw more foreigners than i usually see in weeks. On a funny note on the way back our bus driver had fallen asleep in the bus and had to be woken up so everyone could catch the bus(a highly unusual thing in japan where time keeping is pretty rigorous). Today I had a spring training seminar with the native teachers from both kumamoto and kagoshima down in kagoshima city(big city furthur south), the meeting went well and I had worked it out so that my parents could explore in kagoshima for the day and then meet up with me for dinner and travel back to kumamoto together, which was good.

No Otaku section this week, next week i'll be in kyoto at this time so i'll have to see about hotel internet/wireless to post a blog, if not i'll be posting a massive blog the following week after returning from Tokyo. The picture[b]S[/b] this week are of myself and my mother at a lookout on the way to mount aso and myself and my father at the crater of mount aso itself.